A Closer Look at the Bombing Sequence

Thanks for this...

Indeed makes you wonder if they really thought this out, there are a lot of flaws with this scene as far as potentially conflicts with what we have seen in Prometheus and indeed other scenes in Alien Covenant.

Is it just a case they thought... this would look really cool...?

I dont agree with how they showed some stuff in the movie, but i guess its fun to try and figure how this can all connect, it could appear the Black Goo just became similar to the Motes we see the Spores released...

But then for some reason all we have is these attack the Engineers and somehow by Virtue of entering the Engineers Body, they seemed to reproduce in number and then leave the Body in the same fashion we see the Motes leave the Spores and take shape into that flying formation.

david does confirm that the pathogen comes in many different forms. this is possibly just one such form that doesn't act in the same way as the black goo seen in Prometheus?

Indeed shows it was kind a McGruffin for the most part...

Alien Engineers, Paradise and Prometheus had set down clues that made it quite simple... FOX released a Document that Muddied the waters and then AC did this further.

I did have a Analogy to explain the difference though, where i thought what if the Urns are like a Nuclear Weapon where we have a number of components that have to be activated/set in a certain way to Cause a Nuclear  Blast and its Effects.

And so the Urns are primed in a Certain way that the Black Goo worked differently where it would just attack and kill the cells of the Target, and maybe replicate itself while doing so.

But as a Nuclear Weapon has a number of components and one of those is the Plutonium/Uranium...  That on its own when taken out of the Primed/Detonated Nuke... the Reactive Plutonium/Uranium when it comes into contact with a Organism, it causes Mutations etc rather than a Blast.

And so maybe the Urns Black Goo thus has a different effect when the Urns are not Primed and Exploded as they are intended and we see in the Bombardment Scene.

But the up close images release in the OT, now do give us more to scratch our heads with.  As we clearly see the Engineers are swarmed by smaller amounts of this Black Stuff that then we see the Engineers Vomit and even see leaving in various shapes.. much more Black Stuff that actually entered their Bodies.

But again i guess its because the Black Goo can be Programed to behave in different ways.

ABigDave - "there are a lot of flaws with this scene as far as potentially conflicts with what we have seen in Prometheus and indeed other scenes in Alien Covenant."

Like what?

@ali81 - We did not need any confirmation of that though. It was obvious the Engineers made various versions for a variety of different functions from the start. We saw it specifically do four different things in Prometheus, not to mention they showed us there were many different sized and shaped urns in the pyramid and Juggernaut, each with something different written on them. We know in general there was a type used to create life and seed a planet, a type to kill all life, and a type to spawn a hybrid, and we have seen various functions of each of those.

Same in Covenant. No doubt David catalogued exactly what each did from the start. If David was going for a specific result for an experiment, he would start with a specific form of the pathogen from one of these.

@ Kethol - Nope. I simply do not agree that the pathogen came in many forms. There was an original virus created. The "many forms" David talks about, refers to the ways it mutated to get round its host's bodily defences.

Here is a major David quote from the novel, talking to Oram in his lab. It fully explains how the black goo works. Note, no mention of tiny insects here, just airborne particles -

"How could your body's own immune system possibly defend itself? A genetically engineered counter-virus, for example, or a human body's own white blood cells, would immediately be met by the pathogen adapting itself, to counter the counter, and so on. As a weapon or a method of biological cleansing, it is simply impossible to defend against. The original liquid atomizes to particles when exposed to the air. It then reproduces in whatever host it happens upon, and eventually gives rise to more liquid, which at the approprite time atomizes, and so on and so on, the cycle repeating itself almost endlessly."

Note, there was an "original liquid", not liquids. Those things we see bursting from the engineers, are obviously the parasite stage of some new creature which has quickly formed inside them. Maybe at high doses of black goo (it raining down on them in vast quantities) it causes very quick mutations and gestation of the parasite (think trilobite). At higher doses still, it causes the body to simply break down (Sacrifical engineer). Your theories still need much more evidence, but I am willing to accept your ideas if you are proven right.

@Yog, Sorry. I think you are dead wrong. The 'pathogen took many forms', means exactly that. We saw clear evidence of those many forms in Prometheus and the bombing scene in Covenant. If it was all exactly the same thing, we would have seen it do exactly the same thing to three factions of Engineers that were infected and the exactly the same thing to the two humans directly infected with it in Prometheus. We saw it do something different to each.

These all contain exactly the same form of black goo.

These do not.

Also, the 'Original Liquid' David referred to is the type he dropped on the Engineers. "Ten years on..."

What do you mean "clear evidence"? Those different sized urns, could be different sizes of bomb. Like different sizes of nuclear warhead, still contain the same basic radioactive substance, but at different yields. Note that all these package sizes, still contain the same snacks. -

I would argue that the pathogen does have the same effect each time. The mutations happen at different speeds due to the amount of liquid ingested. It is obvious that Fifield, Holloway, the sacrificial engineer, and the engineers killed by David, all get different doses of the liquid. Holloway only gets a tiny drop. This is why his mutation is much much slower..than the engineers David bombs. They get it heavily rained on them, so they mutate, spawn parasites and die really quickly. There is no evidence of these different liquids. The original idea was to have the scarabs doing the DNA swapping. This idea was later changed to "the black goo". Not various black goos of different types, doing different things. That idea would be way too complex and confusing. RS would surely know that. One black goo is enough. And that's all we have evidence for.

Also, remember this? An official explanation from Fox, of the black goo, or "Chemical_A0-3959X.91 - 15_" as it is called. Note the different effects mentioned? It's just one chemical, not different chemicals for different effects. The "different forms" David talks about are mutations of this original virus to get round bodily defences. That's literally all he says on it.

"Note that all these package sizes, still contain the same snacks"

Also note they all have the same writing on them, except for the size. The urns have no similar writing on them.

"The mutations happen at different speeds due to the amount of liquid ingested"

Where is your evidence of that? Holloway was infected with a drop hours before Fifield and we don't know how much of the pathogen Fifield was infected with, whether he ingested it, or just inhaled it when his face plate melted. Their infections had completely different results. There was literally nothing similar. Also, David said the liquid replicates itself and a single application is capable of rendering an entire world uninhabitable, so the amount may not make any difference.

"Also, remember this? An official explanation from Fox, of the black goo, or "Chemical_A0-3959X.91 - 15_"

Yes, and I also remember us ripping it to shreds back in 2012. Don't take everything Fox marketing makes up as gospel. Nice little web piece to help the confused understand what the black stuff was, but unfortunately it contradicts the movie everywhere. It is a report from David to Weyland. Note the "ingestion" and "inhalation" time 0f 36-50 hours. Holloway was dead within 1 day. Same with Fifield. It also shows "planet tests" gamma and alpha? Not in the movie. See the note about the distance of nearly a meter that the urns are to be kept apart? None of the urns are shown at that distance in the movie. The ones in the Juggernaut are literally stacked.

That material is loosely canon at best. That is probably why Fox marketing plastered REPORT INCOMPLETE and DATA NOT VERIFIED all over it.

"The original liquid atomizes to particles when exposed to the air. It then reproduces in whatever host it happens upon, and eventually gives rise to more liquid, which at the approprite time atomizes, and so on and so on, the cycle repeating itself almost endlessly."

Indeed Yog Sothoth i have not read the book yet, but this pretty much does explain the Bombardment Scene, its pretty much what i saw the scene doing when looking at it in detail as i replied on here i think yesterday?

And so in reply to Kethol when he asked Like What i had been on about how just as you Yog Sothoth mentioned the effects in Prometheus, they appeared to be different to the Bombardment Scene.

Where we was left with Charred/Burnt like Mummified Engineers, we did not see this or any clues to this from Prometheus.  Prometheus clearly shows us the Black Goo contained a Viral Strain of DNA related to the Deacon/Xenomorph where contact with this would mutate Organisms into Life Forms that had Xenomorph like DNA.

The Concept works and drafts backed this up with how Fifield was more than a Toxic Avenger Mutant.  There was one puzzling thing though and that was the Engineers Dead Bodies that their Suits all seemed Empty/Hollow yet the Head Remained intact... which i put down to them being infected and breaking down like the Sacrificial Engineer only this Voilent Chemical Reaction was contained within the Space Suits and so eventually like a Cola and Mint Reaction it would explode from the weakest point of the container (Space Suit) and that the Ampoule Room must have been a Environment that would have halted the Process of the Black Goo, hence why the Engineers was all trying to head there.

Yet the infection of Black Goo with Holloway ==> Shaw, the Worms and Fifield had a different effect...

Ridley Scott had said however that Fifield was in the Process of what happened to the Engineers and so i assume eventually he would go POP!

Alien Covenant the Bombardment just seemed to cover the Engineers in Black like dust/particles and then from inside they started to regurgitate Black Liquid which also seemed to escape from other holes as we see in the screen shots.

And then left them all Burnt up so to speak... which i wondered could this had been due to a Safety Device to Prevent the Black Goo?  But since the movie, there is no proof of this.

Latter in Alien Covenant we see many forms of experiments related to the Deacon/Xeno DNA,  these Organisms David has tested and experimented upon have simply not suffered the same affect as we see in the Bombardment Scene.

And so this is what i was referring to as far as a few flaws, in that the Black Goo did not quite seem to perform in ways that added up....  When Jon Spaights Nano-Scarabs was quite simple and easy to follow.

Then we have that Weyland File posted in previous post, and this in a way contradicted what we saw in Prometheus to a degree.

@ Kethol

Oh right, so we should ignore what Fox said, and go with your theory..based on different urn sizes and unknown writing on them? You lack evidence dude. That writing could just be saying how big the viral load is, or it's intended target. Maybe some are intended to wipe out whole planets, some just a small area. As for the hours to DNA disintegration thing, maybe Weyland Corp know more about the black goo than we think? *Shrugs*. I've no idea, but it's still more canon than your idea. I think dosage as well as method of infection plays a part in the speed of mutation. You cannot say that Holloway was not going to mutate into something similar to Fifield. Maybe Fifield was going to spawn a trilobite of his own? They both died too quickly for us to see the full effects of the goo. It's obvious that Fifield got a much bigger dose in his nose and mouth than Holloway did. Just look at what happened. Facial splash vs tiny drop in his drink. Big difference in dosage. Also, if you read the Prometheus script (the one by Lindelof), it also has Holloway mutating into some kind of monster before he is killed.

Why the heck would an already complicated set of movies like this need extra complication with different goo types which do basically the same thing? You simply need more and better evidence to convince me. I can be convinced as you know. But not with this. Stare hard at those Doritos bags dude.

However.....

Taking into account the passage from the Novel. "The original liquid atomizes to particles when exposed to the air. It then reproduces in whatever host it happens upon, and eventually gives rise to more liquid, which at the approprite time atomizes, and so on and so on, the cycle repeating itself almost endlessly."

This clearly explains the Bombardment and when i take this from the Novel as a Vital Clue (as the movie did not give as much straight answers) apply this to AC Engineers and Prometheus Engineers.

And i am being shown something very interesting... if they now are going for ONE kind of Black Goo that has various applications... so the Sacrificial and Urns are the same (which i think they are not)  or Regardless...

it appears the Substance (be it Sacrificial or Urns) somehow reacts with the Engineers in a different way, that simply causes them to reproduce the Virus, the differences are the Ingested Sacrificial Engineer scene we see it also causes the Engineers Body to simply break down and all that remains is particles/the Black Goo.

This ^^ could also be similar to what happened to the LV-223 Engineers as they are broken down into particles/Black Goo.

However the Bombardment Urns are effected/primed to have a different effect on the Engineers, where it attacks them and replicates itself but instead of breaking down the Engineers bodies, it just causes the Genetic Building Blocks to Solidify into a Black Hardened state.

This is how i can now see the Black Goo effects on the Engineers DNA now i can take the Passage from the Novel as a missing piece of the Jigsaw.

As far as the URN SIZES this was a very odd decision by the Production team as to why have different sizes and then load them into the same Cargo Hold, if they all have different effects.

There is never really a explanation to why they are different sizes so its really open for debate..  You would assume if you was a Race who created such a Weapon, then you would use the Same Size Urn/Jars and store the Same Type of Bio Weapon in them.

Rather than mixing them together....

Unless the size of the Jars is irelevant and its just like being in a SODA Factory making some Cola in Thousands and Thousands of Liters and then filling up different size bottles or better still BREWING some HOME-BREW and you have 5 Gallons to Bottle up and you may have say 20 X 500ml Bottles, 10 X 330ml bottles and a number of 750ml bottles.

@Yog Sothoth

Again i think the Problem is those working on the movies did not give everything a really good thought when working out how everything can connect and so there are a number of things that could be contradicting or confusing.

It appears they just add and change what the Goo does as they go along.

Where as Spaights idea was pretty simple and basic.  These are Genetic Engineers, they specialize in creation and evolution of life.

And so the Nano-Scarabs are a Creation Tool used to be able to obtain the Genome/DNA of a Organism and then pass this Genome/DNA into other Organisms... thus creating Hybrids.

Wolf + Sacrificial Goo  and resulting reaction comes into contact with a Human will evolve into something like a Werewolf.

so the different Urn Sizes and Writing on them could have just been a Production Team just making them all different for no real reason.  Which leads to some confusion etc.

@ BigDave

" these Organisms David has tested and experimented upon have simply not suffered the same affect as we see in the Bombardment Scene." - This is because they didn't get hit with such a huge payload of it, like those engineers did. The Engineers got it rained down on them like a storm. Other animals on the planet would have secondary infections from much less of the virus, so slower mutations and different mutations as they all have different genomes for the goo to work on.

As for the different urn sizes, without more hard evidence, all I can say is this -

All those packets have "Doritos corn chips cheese supreme" written on them. The urns have all kinds of different symbols.

@ hox

But we don't know what those symbols mean do we? They might indicate weight or intended target. Why would they need to say "BLACK GOO" on them in engineer language? Do all your Xmas gifts say "XMAS GIFT" on them? Nope.

@ BigDave

Indeed, some of these differences could just be lazy directing and production, and the urns sizes could be for artistic reason only. There might not actually be a fully worked out reason for everything. But we as fans of the movies and lovers of things making sense, can use our best logic and evidence to fill in any gaps in the canon. I actually think it does make sense, especially in the novel of Alien: Covenant and in the script of Prometheus. Things make much more sense in writing than on screen it seems. I blame Ridely Scott for not actually being a very good director anymore. He is old and past it. His best is long behind him now. But I love Alien and Bladerunner so I will keep watching this stuff no matter how faulty it gets.

Depending on what exactly happened to the decapitated Engineer in Prometheus, his head bubbling up and exploding looks pretty similar to the way the beings on Planet 4. The skin on the head starts to look cracked, then bubbly, then explodes.  The big difference being that the black tendrils shoot out from the Planet 4 beings and then hardens.  Maybe an overdose of black goo always causes an Engineer to break down/dissolve, but the more they are infected with, the more violent the death becomes.

Exactly, the simple explanation is that there is one type of goo. Different dosages change the speed of the reaction, and the different animal victims have different (but similar) mutations and parasitic offspring.

To have different kinds of goo, would require a stupid level of off screen complication, that would need a professor in logic with a chalkboard to explain to the average viewer. It just isn't probable.

@Yog - "Oh right, so we should ignore what Fox said"

If you want to go with Foxes marketing materials and not the movies and shorts, you are going to have to reverse your insect/mote theory again :) See Foxes Alien Covenant Evolution graphic.

If you want canon, stick with the movies and short films.

Indeed i think its differences to what Drafts and Books can give as far as details that was not included in the Movies, can lead us to different outcomes... as each Material, be it Concepts, Earlier Drafts, Movie Theatrical Cuts, Deleted Scenes, Art of the movie books and comments by Production etc all can take us and lead us to some different conclusions.

As far as the Symbols and Writing... this is another interesting thing as the Writing does not add up with the Engineers Cruciform that they have on their Ships, Temples and LV-223 Outpost.

This is maybe a Oversight.... but it could mean the Urns come from Predators or Elves lol   Joke..  I think maybe it could be put down to why do the Engineers all have to have the same writing?

When on Earth we have Greek, Arabic, Indian, Chinese, Japanese and English alphabets just as a small example of many forms of writing.

@ Kethol

Foxes Alien Covenant Evolution graphic, isn't faulty with canon. It says the Motes are "Microscopic dust-like spores". This doesn't rule them out as being microscopic insects as well. They do appear as "dust-like", because they are so tiny. Anyway, part of my point is that even if the Fox black goo description is somehow faulty, it is still a better source of canon than your theories about what the engineer writing says on different urn sizes. Please argue using more solid evidence. I know you can do it :)

its either completely messed up or there r different form of the pathogen. if not then how do they explain away fifield's reaction and the reaction with the engineers? fifield fell face first into the liquid so it cant be put down to just 'different amounts'. he was covered in the stuff as were the engineers. if it is all one and the same pathogen, then regardless of the victim/species, the desired effect should always be the same. so the engineers should have all mutated as fifield did.

@ BigDave

I agree.

@ ali81

Fifield gets a small spash in his face, he doesn't get "covered in the stuff" because he's wearing a protective suit as he falls in it. The engineers David bombs get it massively rained down on them, and they are wearing what looks like cloth robes. Much more of the goo would be hitting their skin at once, causing a faster effect. Also, the Engineers have a different genome to humans (they have the same DNA structure but their genome will be different). So they will have a slightly different reaction to Fifield anyway regardless of dosage.

I don't think the movie was done very well, but these different reactions about dosage and genome difference only. Any other theory needs more evidence.

a pathogen is a pathogen designed to have a desired effect and that effect would be the same although there would be some physical differences in the mutation dependant on which species it encounters. the fact that the engineers and humans are genetically different on means that the mutation would differ but not the end result. if the pathogen was designed to mutate, it would mutate no matter the species. if it was designed to chargrill its victim, it would chargrill the victim regardless of species. Holloway was being mutated, just the same as fifield but at a slower rate due to the amount of goo he was infected with but the result would have been the same

@ ali81

"mutation would differ but not the end result." - How do you know this? David says in Alien: Covenant, that the goo kills some creatures outright. It could be that it is simply lethal to engineers. We do not know the full details. In the Advent extended scene, he clearly states that the goo causes a different reaction with each genome it meets. Watch it if you havn't already, it's probably still on Youtube. We have lots of evidence of different reactions with dose and genome and ZERO evidence for different kinds of goo.

and I suppose going by ur posts that u know?

and I suppose going by ur posts that u know?